Chamber and committees

If I may, I will take a little time to talk about the bill overall but, before I do that, I express my thanks to the legislation team, the minister, MSPs from other parties and the organisations with which we have all had lots of conversations over the past many months.

I am proud that we are here discussing amendments to the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which, of course, was introduced by my Scottish Green colleague Patrick Harvie as part of our work with the Scottish Government to deliver a new deal for tenants. That bit is key, so I will repeat it: this is part of a new deal for tenants.

That is the point of the bill. The aim is to make living more affordable, healthier and happier for renters; to make renting safe and secure for those who choose to rent as well as for those who have to rent; and to make renting not just something from which landlords profit but something that is viable and non-stigmatising as part of our housing system. It is for renters that the bill exists at all. It aims to tackle and check the soaring rents to which they have been subjected for far too long; to give them rights to make their home really feel like their home; to provide protections against homelessness; and to give specific groups of tenants, such as students, protections against rip-off rents and to make housing fairer for them. It is with renters in mind that we have lodged the amendments to the bill that I will speak to today.

My amendments 144, 145 and 146 would establish a simple but important principle that the Scottish Government should respect local decision making on rent control areas. Under the bill at present, an application for a rent control area could simply be vetoed by the Scottish Government by not acceding to a request to designate a zone or by not making a decision on it. The Verity house agreement, which was signed by the Scottish Government, says:

“The powers held by local authorities shall normally be full and exclusive. They may not be undermined or limited by another, central or regional, authority”.

With all due respect to the minister, I do not see how a Government that signed up to that principle can then give itself an unchecked right of veto, however unintentionally. I think and hope that that is simply a drafting issue.

My amendments suggest a compromise and a way to deal with the issue. They would require the Scottish Government to introduce a suggested rent control area unless it brings a motion to the Parliament on not doing so. Therefore, the minister’s point that the amendments would remove ministers’ discretion is not actually the case; rather, the proposals would respect local decision making while guarding against any unlikely scenarios where a proposed rent control area is fundamentally flawed—that is very specifically what amendment 145 would do. It would give ministers the power to say, “No, not at this time,” but to do that in a democratic way, through the Parliament.

Turning to the other amendments in the group, I question why the minister’s amendment 278 kicks the can further down the road by ensuring that the process starts another six months later, given that the process has already been delayed on more than one occasion.

On the timing of the process, I support Carol Mochan’s intent in amendment 480 to ensure that local authorities need to look at bringing in rent control areas at least every five years. Doing it more frequently than that and limiting the lifetime of RCAs, as some of Meghan Gallacher’s amendments suggest, would add too much uncertainty for renters and landlords and would severely overstretch local authorities.

Although we cannot support all the Conservative amendments in the group, Conservative members have a number of helpful amendments, such as Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 206, which would help us to be clearer about how we draw the boundaries of rent control areas, and Graham Simpson’s amendment 69, on the establishment of rent boards. I have a couple of questions about the powers and responsibilities of those boards, but the principle is sound and we support amendment 69.

Purpose-built student accommodation can, and does, provide an important source of accommodation for students, but the sector is, quite frankly, getting out of control. A basic room in one PBSA block—the Vita student block in Fountainbridge in Edinburgh—is £406 not a month, but a week. That means that a student will be paying over £1,600 a month for the smallest—just 20 m²—and most basic room on offer. All that that does is line the pockets of private developers at the expense of students at a time when, as we know, student homelessness is on the rise.

The National Union of Students Scotland and student living rent groups across the country are very clear that student accommodation must be included in the bill. After all, students deserve the same protections as any other renters. That is why we need to look at controlling rents for student accommodation, too.

I welcome Graham Simpson’s amendment 59, which empowers the Scottish Government to introduce rent controls for student accommodation. However, as he alluded to, the way in which the amendment is written means that the Government will not have to do anything. Given the student housing crisis and the risk of homelessness that too many students face, doing nothing should not be an option for us today. My amendments 59A and 59B therefore require the Scottish Government to introduce controls into the sector. The detail of how that will be done will have to come later—after the appropriate consultation, of course—but I hope that we can take the first step today.

My other two amendments in the group—amendments 535 and 536—address a different set of issues, which I am sure that the National Union of Students Scotland and others highlighted to many of us. We know that, by virtue of not necessarily having family or other connections here, international students can struggle to get a guarantor, but we also know that they are very unlikely to default on rents. Amendments 535 and 536 therefore seek to introduce specific controls for non-United Kingdom domiciled students.

Amendment 535 would create a

“guarantor scheme for non-UK domiciled students”

whereby

“a public body”

would

“act as guarantor”

for international students, which means that they would not struggle to get rents simply because they do not have somebody who can say, “Yes—we will be the guarantor.”

Amendment 536 creates a review of deposits for international students. Deposits can be a further barrier for students who not only do not have a guarantor but also do not have access to other funds in the UK. We know of too many stories where international students are asked to pay three, six or 12 months’ rent up front in advance of signing a lease for a flat. That cannot be acceptable. We would not expect any other renter to pay so much money for accommodation in advance. I hope that we can move to reducing deposits so that the students whom we welcome here to study, many of whom play such an important role in our communities, are not priced out of doing so.

Accommodation is one of the key limiting factors for many international students. I hope that members will take amendments 535 and 536 seriously, because the situation is out of control.

Is it the minister’s view that the PBSA sector should not be able to treat international students differently?

Is the Scottish Government sympathetic to finding some solution for students who struggle to get guarantors, regardless of whether they are international students?

Thanks very much for that, Charlie.

Clare, do you have any thoughts on how businesses as well as public bodies are engaging with the concept of human rights due diligence? What do we need to be looking for and what do we need to be doing between now and maximal incorporation?

I hope that this is a quickish question on education. I will start with Angela O’Hagan, given that you just talked about CESCR’s concluding observations, which clearly stress the importance of culturally appropriate and inclusive education to ensure the fulfilment and realisation of rights. How well is Scotland meeting the expectation for specific groups such as children from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community and disabled learners? I will come to Clare MacGillivray and Lorne Berkley, too, because I know that they have special interests.

That is really helpful, thank you. I hand back to the convener.

That is a really useful example of the connections that we perhaps do not always get.

I ask Lorne Berkley the same kind of question. I am particularly interested in the commission’s view on due diligence because of the failure to support disabled people in the workplace, which is the case across society. What role can and should businesses be taking in that?

I want to express my solidarity with trans and non-binary people across Scotland. I have spoken to many of them over the past weeks and months and they consistently say the same thing: that they feel under attack; that they feel that, as a group, they have been cast as a threat to others when we know that they are not; and that they just want to live their lives as who they are, like any of us do.

I am grateful to the many people—trans and cis—who have been in touch with me over the past two weeks to tell me their stories. It has been devastating to hear about the exclusion and prejudice that they or their loved ones have faced and how worried they are for the future. Some have just been in touch to thank me for standing up for them in this cruellest of culture wars.

A culture war is what is happening. Trans and non-binary people are having their lives weaponised in absolutely dreadful ways and, for the first time in a long time, human rights appear to be going backwards. We are already seeing implications for women too, with challenges to our bodily autonomy, our abortion rights and our right to exist as we wish, rather than according to socially imposed views of femininity or beauty.

The Good Law Project and others have produced detailed analyses of the questions that are raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s interim statement that was produced on Friday evening—and, indeed, the Supreme Court ruling—about compliance with our obligations under international human rights law. I will not go into that in detail now; we will spend time discussing that in due course.

This debate is about what I said in response to the Supreme Court ruling. I have never questioned the court’s right to make the ruling that it did, but that does not mean that I must agree with it. I do not, and I am very concerned about the impact that it will have and is already having. Trans and non-binary people just want to be able to live their lives like any of us, without the fear of prejudice or violence, but they are now concerned about how their lives and rights will be affected by the ruling.

I have stood up for and advocated for trans and non-binary people and I always will. That is not just because it is the right thing to do; it is also my job to stand up for my constituents. All of us have constituents who are trans or non-binary. Other constituents have trans or non-binary children, parents, siblings and friends. They deserve representation as who they are.

I will not stop being a vocal trans ally. That is what I was doing in Aberdeen nearly 10 days ago, as I had done in Dundee the day before, and as I have done many times over the years on our streets and in our Parliament. Thousands of LGBTQIA+ people and their allies gathered on our streets after the Supreme Court verdict because they were angry, afraid and uncertain of what lies ahead for them and their loved ones.

We know that our courts reflect our society. We have probably all criticised court judgments in the past when racist or homophobic laws were upheld, when women did not get justice for the abuse and violence that they had faced, or when coal miners were convicted of offences during the miners strike of the 1980s. Just a couple of years ago, this very Parliament pardoned all those who were convicted during the strike with the Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Act 2022. That is not to say that the courts did not have the constitutional right to make those judgments—of course they did. However, we would all surely hope that those rulings would be made differently if they were to be made today.

This ruling did not happen in a vacuum; it happened with a backdrop of a culture war that has seen trans people and their loved ones being targeted and demonised by too many politicians and by large parts of the media. However, as politicians, we must use our voices to speak out when we see rights being removed or injustices faced by anyone, and perhaps especially when minoritised communities are threatened by societal prejudice. We not only have the right of freedom of expression to be able to speak out; we have the obligation to speak out.

I do not expect all MSPs on the committee to agree with my views on the ruling or about trans rights more generally, but I hope that members will uphold my right to them.

Lord David Hope, who served as the Lord President of the Court of Session and first deputy president of the Supreme Court—and who is not a Scottish Green Party member—said of me:

“I do not think that she should stand down or be removed from her post but she should be more careful with her language.”

I will let members be the judge of that.

However, this is not about me—it is about what message our Parliament sends, and what we do for people who feel under attack and who are worried about what the future holds.

Finally, I am sorry that I am not with the committee in person, but I am at the Scottish Trades Union Congress annual congress in Dundee. Congress opened yesterday with a clear statement of welcome to, and inclusion of, trans people. The STUC’s general secretary, Roz Foyer, has expressed grave concerns about the impacts and effects on trans and non-binary people of the Supreme Court ruling, and trade unionists from across the country spoke passionately in support of trans and non-binary people, expressing solidarity in the face of the onslaught that they face. I am proud to be a trade unionist, just as I am proud to be a trans ally.

Thanks very much, Clare. There is a lot for the committee to think about in exploring where to go with some of this work.

I have a final question for you, before I ask my questions for Lucy Mulvagh. Given your experience of SNAP2 and the withdrawal of Making Rights Real from the process, what do you hope will happen with the national action plan on business and human rights in Scotland? What role can civil society play in that? Do you hold out much hope for that process?